The newspaper reports that one of the firefighters has been located.
The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office has notified residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell to evacuate.
Roxie Glover, spokeswoman at Wickenburg Community Hospital, told The Associated Press that the hospital has been told to expect residents with injuries and firefighters
Earlier Sunday, the fast-moving fire prompted evacuations of 50 homes in the Buckhorn, Model Creek and Double A Bar Ranch areas about 85 miles northwest of Phoenix.
In the afternoon, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office expanded the evacuations to include residents in the Peeples Valley area and in the town of Yarnell.
The wildfire also forced the closure of parts of state Route 89, the Arizona Department of Transportation announced. The department did not have an estimate of how long the closure would last but advised drivers to use U.S. 93 or Interstate 17 as alternate routes.

Whoever thought a Chihuahua could be a police dog. Back in 2006 an innovative sheriff in Ohio came up with this novel idea while watching big dogs struggle to turn around inside a car, searching for drugs. He trained up his little Chihuahua to become what was then believed to be, the worlds smallest drug-sniffing dog.Recently a Japanese police force adopted an open enrollment policy for search and rescue in their canine division. 70 Dogs competed for a spot and guess who made the grade? A 6.6 lb Chihuahua named Momo. The seven year old, long-haired Chihuahua was one of 32 successful candidates.

Momo - Japanese Rescue Dog (AP)

Momo will be used for rescue operations in disasters such as earthquakes, in the hope that she may be able to squeeze her tiny frame into places too narrow for German Shepherds, which tend to be the usual rescue dogs.
Watch this CBS News report, “Japan Hires a Chihuahua Police Dog” on YouTube
Looks like this little dog is a big deal.

A lower criminal court in Bahrain, headed by a member of the ruling family, has sentenced a 17-year-old boy to a year in jail for insulting the Gulf island's king on Twitter.The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) on Saturday said Ali Al Shofa was arrested in a house raid at dawn on 12 March 2013. He spent two months in jail while under investigation.
Ali was accused of posting insulting comments about Sheikh Hamad Al-Khalifa using the account @alkawarahnews, which he denied a relationship with. His lawyer submitted evidence that the account was still being run by other people.
Human rights groups said the sentencing was part of a wider crackdown on freedom of speech in Bahrain.

Last month a court sentenced five twitter users to a year each in jail for insulting the king on twitter.
Earlier in June, the BCHR reported the abduction and incommunicado detention of Jaffar Al-Demstani for tweeting about the torture of his father, Ebrahim Al-Demstani.

Saudi Arabia has sentenced seven activists from its restive Eastern Province to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years for posting messages on Facebook calling for anti-government protests, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

Minority Shia Muslims have held protests in Eastern Province over the past two years against alleged discrimination and negligence, which the Riyadh government denies.
"Sending people off to years in prison for peaceful Facebook posts sends a strong message that there's no safe way to speak out in Saudi Arabia, even on online social networks," said Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director.
The New York-based rights group urged EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and other European officials to condemn the convictions. Ashton was due to meet Gulf counterparts, including from Saudi Arabia, in Manama, Bahrain on Sunday.

"If the EU doesn't raise these cases with Saudi officials this weekend, its silence will look like craven compliance with the rights abuses of an authoritarian state."
Saudi Interior Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

TAMPA, FL - A Florida man is accused of strangling a family puppy, chopping it into pieces and cooking its ribs on the stove, Tampa police said.
Thomas Elliot Huggins, 25, was arrested Thursday after a family member called police.
"When officers arrived, they found the dog's ribs cooked in a pot on the stove," Tampa police said. "The dog's head was in the garbage."

Huggins had strangled the 5- to 6-month-old puppy and chopped it into quarters, storing pieces in the freezer for future meals, authorities said.
He was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty. Animal control officials took the remains of the puppy.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. -- A woman was rescued by airboat on Saturday in a remote part of the Florida Everglades after an alligator bit her inflatable boat and caused it to sink, authorities said.
The woman was floating on an inflatable boat in the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge when the gator attacked the raft, according to Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.At 12:16 p.m. authorities responded to reports of a woman being attacked by an alligator, but later discovered she had been on a boat that was bitten by the gator.
"Due to the remoteness of the location, firefighters utilized an airboat to reach the woman," said Fire Rescue spokesman Capt. Albert Borroto. The woman, who will not be identified due to privacy concerns, was evaluated at the scene. She was not injured, but she was "shaken up" by the attack, Borroto said. Fire crews transported her back to dry land.
The wildlife refuge west of Boynton Beach is the last northernmost portion of the Everglades. The area where the woman was found is popular for canoes, kayaks and hikers and the wildlife is very abundant, Borroto said.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Loxahatchee Refuge consists of more than 200 square miles of Everglades habitat. It is home to the American alligator and the endangered Everglade snail kite.

ROME – A
cleric formerly assigned to the Vatican finance office is among three people
arrested Friday for allegedly attempting to smuggle 20 million euros ($26
million) in cash into Italy.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano was recently
relieved of his duties as a senior Vatican accountant after the Holy See learned
that he was under investigation for money laundering.

The others taken
into custody are financial intermediary Giovanni Carinzo and Giovanni Maria
Zito, an erstwhile member of the intelligence division of Italy’s militarized
national police.

The investigation leading to their arrests was part of a
wider probe into the operations of the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR,
the Vatican’s bank.

The smuggling case, however, does not appear to
involve the IOR.

The Vatican said Wednesday that Pope Francis has named a
five-person commission that in the coming months will investigate all that goes
on in the IOR, involved for years in a series of financial scandals, with a view
to its possible reform. EFE

Edward Snowden: hot potato

As NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden remains holed up somewhere in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, at least three governments are involved in high-stakes backdoor negotiations over his fate.
Politicians in the United States vowed to step up pressure on Russia and Ecuador. The latter has suggested it might give asylum to Snowden, a former contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency wanted by the United States for leaking reports about a top-secret surveillance program. But for Ecuador and Russia, the key question was whether the whistleblower was a gift of fate or a hot potato.
By the end of this week, a number of Russian politicians were increasingly seeing him as an opportunity to exploit.
Russia’s Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, wants Snowden to help investigate whether American Internet companies provided information about Russian citizens to the U.S. government. “We invite Edward Snowden to work with us and hope that as soon as he settles his legal status, he will collaborate with our working group and provide us with proof of U.S. intelligence agencies’ access to the servers of Internet companies,” Senator Ruslan Gattarov was quoted by RIA Novosti as saying on Thursday, a day after Russia’s upper house of parliament decided to set up a special working group to investigate Snowden’s claims.
Earlier, Kirill Kabanov, a member of President Vladimir Putin’s Human Rights Council, called on colleagues to appeal to the Kremlin to grant asylum for Snowden.
Given that Putin himself suggested that giving Snowden asylum was as useless as “shearing a pig – a lot of squealing and no fleece,” why has Snowden suddenly become so appealing for Russia’s political elite?
“It’s very good to demonstrate to the world that the United States isn’t such a big defender of human rights as it makes itself out to be,” Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst and the prorector of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, told The Moscow News. “And it’s good to show that Russia can act independently of the United States. Plus, if he stays, there’s a possibility that our security services will have access to his information.”
Putin was notoriously lukewarm on Snowden, saying on Tuesday that the sooner he left the country, the better. But that, Markov said, was part personal, and part political ploy.
“[Putin] is a former intelligence officer, and for him [what Snowden did] is betrayal,” Markov said. “Also, Putin doesn’t want to think that Russia organized [Snowden’s arrival to Moscow].”
But other analysts reflected Putin’s skepticism, and said that keeping Snowden in Russia would be a mistake.
“It should not be done,” Alexander Konovalov, President of the Institute of Strategic Assessment, told The Moscow News, suggesting that Snowden posed a liability by being too unpredictable.
“No one really knows what he was motivated by. It wasn’t money. It wasn’t Communist ideals, which don’t matter anymore,” he said. “So what were they? He’s part of a new information society, and for many of these people, there is a conflict between the responsibilities they’ve undertaken before the state, and the responsibilities which they themselves feel they have before humanity. We will increasingly be seeing people like this here in Russia.”
That, Konovalov said, is not something the Kremlin would be looking forward to.
A similar indecisiveness on whether Snowden was worth the trouble was reflected in the United States, where President Barack Obama was lukewarm on pressing for Snowden’s extradition.
"I have not called [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] personally or President Putin personally and the reason is … number one, I shouldn't have to," Obama said this week, adding that given the business America does with Russia, Snowden just wasn’t worth “wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues.”
For some lawmakers, on the other hand, extraditing Snowden was a matter of political principle.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told The Daily Beast that the extradition was a “defining moment” in America’s relationship with Russia.
“We are exploring what are the leverage points. I’m trying to put together a package to let the Russians know how serious we are,” he was quoted as saying.
But even in the States, other lawmakers, like Carl Levin of the Senates Armed Services Committee, recognize they have little leverage over Russia.
Pressure by the United States on Ecuador – which too distanced itself from Snowden when it denied it had given him refugee documents of passage – has already backfired, for example.
After Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, threatened Ecuador’s trade arrangements with the United States if it grants asylum to Snowden, Ecuador thumbed its nose and renounced the preferential tariffs anyway, “in the face of threats, insolence and arrogance of certain U.S. sectors,” President Rafael Correa said on Thursday.
Indeed, both Ecuador and fellow leftist ally Venezuela seem to be in the middle – exploiting the political rhetoric, but not committing to Snowden himself. Both have made strong statements against the United States, but have largely remained careful in offering Snowden asylum.

Friday, June 28, 2013

CAIRO – A 21-year-old
U.S. man was killed Friday while photographing clashes in Alexandria between
supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

The man
was stabbed in the chest, Egypt’s official Mena news agency said, though
security sources told Efe that the American may have been killed by
birdshot.

An Egyptian man killed earlier Friday in Alexandria was a Morsi
supporter, the sources said.

Anti-government militants burned the
Alexandria offices of the president’s Peace and Justice Party, the political
wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Dozens of people were injured in clashes
around the PJP offices, including 11 police.

Andrew Driscoll Pochter Died

Medics working at a
makeshift hospital set up inside a nearby mosque said they treated 143 people,
most of them suffering from birdshot wounds.

The opposing sides pelted
each other with stones and traded accusations of snipers posted on
rooftops.

Foes of Morsi also set fire to three PJP offices in the Nile
delta province of Dakahliya.

Cairo witnessed continuing mass
demonstration by both partisans and opponents of the government.

Critics
accuse Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood of doing little to address poverty and
the declining economy, of failing to advance the goals of the 2011 revolution
that forced out strongman Hosni Mubarak and of seeking to monopolize
power.

The opposition is gearing up for nationwide marches this weekend
aimed at driving Morsi from office. EFE

SAO PAULO – Robbers who
assaulted the home of a Bolivian couple before dawn Friday in the Brazilian city
of Sao Paulo killed their only child “because he wouldn’t stop crying,” police
officials said.

The mother identified the boy as 5-year-old Bryan
Yanarico Capcha and told police that six armed men had broken into their
home.

The married couple, who came to the city at the beginning of the
year to work in a clothing factory, gave the assailants the 4,500 reais ($2,000)
they had in the house, but the criminals wanted more money, the woman told
police.

Police officials cited in the media said the boy, who was in his
mother’s arms, “would not stop crying,” which irritated one of the assailants
who shot him in the head.

The criminals fled immediately and the child
was rushed to a nearby hospital, but died on the way.

In recent years Sao
Paulo has become the destination of thousands of Bolivians looking for a better
future, often in the textile industry.

Human rights organizations
estimate the number of Bolivians living in Sao Paulo at some 100,000, most of
them illegally and many the victims of slave-labor practices in the textile
industry. EFE

Thursday, June 27, 2013

HAVANA – Two Havana high
school teachers and a worker at a printing company were arrested for selling
students copies of a mathematics exam prior to the test, Cuba’s official media
said Thursday.

The math test was for 11th grade students in the capital
and was given several days ago, Communist Party daily Granma said.

When
the illicit activity was detected, however, authorities decided to throw out the
results and hold a new exam on July 1.

“Unscrupulous people, violating
their principles, decided to steal an exam with an eye toward profits,” Granma
said in an article entitled “The terrible damage of fraud.”

Police
arrested the trio in the Cerro neighborhood and the daily said that the
situation “cannot be seen as a minor incident.”

“Once again the concept
of vigilance and thoroughness is lacking and the conditions are facilitated
whereby a worker who has been entrusted with participating in the printing of a
test takes a copy and uses it for an illicit business,” Granma said.

The
daily said it was worrisome that some parents of students “fell into the trap”
and paid for the exam, which was then resold by students, spreading the fraud
into other Havana neighborhoods.

Many parents reacted with indignation to
the report of the fraud and are demanding that “exemplary measures be taken
against those responsible,” Granma said. EFE

MEXICO CITY – At least
11 people were killed and seven others wounded in a shootout between army troops
and gunmen in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, state officials
said.

The shootout occurred Wednesday in Reynosa, located across the
border from McAllen, Texas, the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office and the
Public Safety Secretariat said in a statement.

The shootout lasted more
than an hour and ended close to a Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, facility and in
front of a school.

Three dead civilians were found inside a pick-up truck
with homemade armor, the AG’s office said, adding that the men were
armed.

One of the dead men was identified as 30-year-old Javier Antonio
Cardenas Lopez, who was from the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

Three men
wounded in the shootout – two soldiers and a Pemex employee – were transported
to a clinic operated by Pemex, officials said.

One of the wounded
soldiers died while being treated by doctors and the other underwent surgery for
a gunshot wound in the back and is listed in stable condition.

The Pemex
employee was treated for a slight wound and later released.

Five
bystanders were wounded and hospitalized, but they are all expected to survive,
the AG’s office said.

The Gulf, Sinaloa and Los Zetas drug cartels have
been fighting for control of Tamaulipas and smuggling routes into the United
States.

The war on drugs launched by former President Felipe Calderon,
who was in office from 2006 to 2012, left about 70,000 people dead, or an
average of 32 per day, in Mexico, officials say.

Calderon, of the
conservative National Action Party, or PAN, deployed thousands of soldiers and
Federal Police officers across the country to fight drug
cartels.

President Enrique Peña Nieto, of the Institutional Revolutionary
Party, or PRI, has continued the strategy implemented by Calderon of taking on
the cartels, but he has also called for bolstering intelligence capabilities and
attacking criminal organizations’ entire structures, not just kingpins. EFE

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran deplored Canada's weak record in respecting human rights, and condemned the Ottawa government for abusing the rights of the Canadian people, natives in particular.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry in a statement congratulated native people of Canada on Canada's National Aboriginal Day, and asked Ottawa to respect the rights of Canadian aborigines.

The statement said Iran admires determination and bravery of Canadian aboriginals to follow their rights and felicitates anniversary of their national day and supports their legitimate demands and expresses its deep concern over continuation of systematic discrimination against these people.

The statement went on to say, unfortunately, Canadian aboriginal societies suffer from all kinds of social and economic discrepancies and do not enjoy the least primary human rights and face with different types of violations and threats.

It said Iran strongly calls on Canadian government to be committed to the rights of aboriginals.

Canada has had a very bad track record when it comes to the treatment of natives and most of the native Canadians suffer poor educational, economic and social conditions, and are among the poorest members of the Canadian society

US Marshals, TPD on scene of barricaded suspect out of Las Vegas

TUCSON - Hostage negotiators have been dispatched to an eastside home where a kidnapping suspect from Las Vegas is barricaded.
The suspect has an outstanding warrant out of Las Vegas, US Marshals spokesman Daniel Leyva said.
US Marshals and Tucson Police are at the home in the 7800 block of East Callisto Circle.
That's near Tanque Verde Road and Camino Pio Decimo

Gun on a city bus: Is it legal?

TUCSON - Passengers on a Suntran bus received a startling surprise Wednesday morning when a passenger boarded carrying a high-capacity rifle, stirring emotions and questions about the legality of carrying the weapon on a city bus.
Nicholas Draper was just finishing a bike ride when he hopped on that bus near Palo Verde and Ajo.

"I lifted my glasses and look across from me and there's this kid with an assault rifle with a smoky transparent clip that was full of bullets... and he's sitting there with his finger on the trigger and the safety," Draper told News 4 Tucson.
Concerned, Draper got up to tell the bus driver about the armed bus rider.
"He's basically glaring everybody on the bus down like he's suspicious of everyone and it's making me very uncomfortable," Draper said. Draper exited the bus at the next bus stop.
A spokesperson with Suntran said that while they do not have a policy preventing people from bringing legal weapons on board, they highly discourage it.
While it's perfectly legal to carry an AR-15 in public without a permit, Tommy Rompel, the owner of Black Weapons Armory, said acting in an intimidating way could pose a problem.
"I think that would be an issue depending on where his finger is and how he's acting in public," Rompel said.
State law comes into play in terms of how you carry a firearm, but more importantly, how you behave while carrying it. State statute prohibits the reckless handling, display or firing of a deadly weapon.
"Unless he's doing something really inappropriate with it, it's more of bad etiquette is what it boils down to," Rompel said.
As for Draper, he never wants to run into that kind of situation again.
"I'm sure I wasn't the only one scared. I saw a few people glance over... minding their own business," Draper said.
A spokesperson with Suntran told News 4 Tucson that this incident turned out very peacefully. However, they acknowledge that it's very important for the public to act as their eyes and ears - letting the bus driver know if anything suspicious is going on.

Wind Farm Begins Operating in Nuevo Leon

Eolica Santa Catarina said its $51 million wind farm in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon started operating.
The facility, which has the capacity to generate 45 GW annually of electricity, uses state-of-the-art General Electric turbines.
The wind farm will supply electricity to six cities, including the industrial center of Monterrey, in Nuevo Leon, providing annual fuel savings of 15 million pesos ($1.13 million).
Foreign trade bank Bancomext provided $36 million in financing for the project, with the remaining $15 million provided by consortium partners Comexhidro Viento and NextEnergy of Mexico, and U.S.-based Conduit Capital.
“This energy is sufficient to light between 8,000 and 10,000 houses with monthly consumption of 500 kilowatts and will benefit the residents of the entire Monterrey metropolitan area,” Eolica Santa Catarina said.

Horse throws rider, goes on to win race at Belmont

Strike a blow for the forces of horse freedom! In the sixth race at Belmont on Wednesday, Downtown Hottie, age 6, decided she'd had quite enough of The Man holding her down, whipping her back end and telling her which way to turn and how fast to run. So she dumped his sorry behind, and as so often happens in these situations, she was the better for it, going on to win the race. Presumably she received plenty of attagirls from her fellow mares in the stable, who watched with envy as she ascended into the sunlight.

Of course, The Man had his revenge. The announcer declined to mention Downtown Hottie, the camera kept her almost completely out of view, and the final tally had her disqualified. Ain't that always the way?

Vatican news agency on Tuesday quoted head of all Franciscans in the Holy Land and Custos of the Holy Land in al-Quds (Jerusalem) Pierbattista Pizzaballa as saying that father Murad decided to be a hermit and resorted to the monastery few weeks earlier.

Custos of the Holy Land said that gunmen entered the monastery and looted all of its items before killing monk Murad, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

"The world must know that supporting the gunmen by the west help extremists kill the Syrians", Pizzaballa said, adding, "With such stances, not a single Christian will remain in the East."

MEXICO CITY – Three police officers
were murdered in Tancitaro, a city in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, by
unidentified individuals, a city spokesman told Efe.

Gunmen captured the
officers early Tuesday in the city’s Pareo district, where the officers had been
sent on patrol.

The bodies of the three slain officers were found by
other law enforcement agents in El Caracol, an area on the Garachico-Limon de La
Luna highway in Tancitaro.

“We are all a bit confused about what really
happened, but the only thing I can say is that they were taken around 4:00 a.m.
(Tuesday) by a group of unidentified people and the officers’ bodies were found
around 7:45 a.m.,” the city spokesman said.

Investigators are working on
the case and bullet casings for different types of weapons were found at the
crime scene, the city spokesman said.

The Caballeros Templarios, La
Familia Michoacana and Jalisco Nueva Generacion drug cartels have been fighting
for control of Michoacan.

The gangs have been battling each other, as
well as new armed vigilante groups, known as “community police forces,” in
different cities.

The Caballeros Templarios gang was founded in March
2011 by former members of La Familia Michoacana and deals in both synthetic
drugs and natural drugs.

The cartel has been fighting rival gangs for
control of turf and smuggling routes in Guerrero and Michoacan states, both of
which are on the Pacific.

Michoacan’s forests and mountains are used by
drug traffickers to grow marijuana and produce synthetic drugs.

French food
giant Danone and Mexican pharmaceutical company Grupo Saba have decided to close
their plants in Michoacan due to the high level of crime and move their
operations to the less violent states of Queretaro and Jalisco, officials
said.

Snack food company Sabritas, a unit of U.S. soft drinks and snack
foods giant PepsiCo, was the target of several attacks in Michoacan last
year.

The state has also been affected by a wave of protests staged by
the CNTE teachers union and normal school students opposed to the educational
reforms implemented in February by President Enrique Peña Nieto. EFE

Arash Sadeghi was a sixth-term graduate student of philosophy at Allameh Tabatabaee University, a member of the Islamic Association of the university, and a member of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s election campaign in the 2009 presidential election when he was arrested on July 9, 2009, following street protests.

Following rumors that prisoner of conscience Arash Sadeghi had died in prison, his former lawyer told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that he is alive, though the lawyer refused to answer questions about whether Sadeghi had been beaten in prison. Sadeghi’s former cellmate told the Campaign no prisoners have seen him, and he has likely been held in solitary confinement for the last 17 months.
“Through the follow-ups I have made, I am sure that he is alive and the rumors circulating about him are not true,” Mahmoud Alizadeh Tababaee, the political prisoner’s former lawyer, told the Campaign. Regarding questions of beatings by prison officials, the reasons why Sadeghi has not been transferred to the general ward, and whether his family has been able to visit with him, Tababaee said, “I cannot answer these questions. We were very concerned about whether Arash is alive or not, and I have been assured over the past days that he is alive.”
This week, 200 political activists published a letter addressed to Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, protesting Arash Sadeghi’s conditions and the absolute lack of news about him. The letter states that Arash Sadeghi has been on a hunger strike inside Ward 209 of Evin in protest of being beaten by forces, and that his psychological and physical health are unknown. Following this letter, rumors have been circulating about whether or not Sadeghi is alive.
Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee, Arash Sadeghi’s former lawyer who has reassumed his case by request of Sadeghi’s father, refused to respond to questions about the reasons he may have been beaten and about his psychological and physical state, or whether he had been able to visit with him. He only said about Sadeghi’s case, “With the follow-ups I have had over the past days, I believe that there will be a indictment issued and sent to court for his new case.”
Arash Sadeghi was a sixth-term graduate student of philosophy at Allameh Tabatabaee University, a member of the Islamic Association of the university, and a member of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s election campaign in the 2009 presidential election when he was arrested on July 9, 2009, following street protests. He was released in late August 2009 without being informed of his charges. Sadeghi resumed his education at Allameh Tabatabaee University that September but was arrested again in December 2009 and released again in March 2010, again without being informed of his charges. He was arrested a third time in June 2010, and released in August 2010. After this third release, his lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee informed him that Branch 26 of Tehran Revolutionary Court under Judge Pirabassi had sentenced him to six years in prison on charges of “propaganda against the regime” and “assembly and collusion with intent to act against national security.”
Intelligence forces raided Arash Sadeghi’s home at 4 a.m. on October 30, 2010, in order to arrest him. Sadeghi’s mother suffered a heart attack with the shock of the raid and passed away. Arash Sadeghi, who was not home that day, turned himself in at Evin Prison on December 21, 2010. He was immediately transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison and subjected to torture by Intelligence forces coercing him to sign a letter denying any relation between his mother’s death and the raid by security forces.
Peyman Aref, a former prisoner of conscience who was Arash Sadeghi’s cellmate for some time, told the Campaign, “Arash was so harshly tortured inside Ward 209 of Evin Prison for signing that letter of denial that his right shoulder broke. When he was transferred to the General Ward, the ward physician ordered 10 physical therapy sessions for him. I was a witness to all of this. Arash was so severely tortured that he was no longer able to lift his right arm. A year after his arrest and almost a month before his release, he was informed of his case process, learning that the appeals court had reduced his sentence from six years to five years, only one year of which was to be served in prison. Therefore he was released on December 15, 2011.”
But Arash Sadeghi was arrested again on January 15, 2012, and has been inside Ward 209 of Evin Prison ever since without having been informed of his new charges.
Asked whether Arash Sadeghi had any political activities during the short time he was released, Peyman Aref said, “I saw Arash twice during that time. He was so depressed and sad, he was unable to do anything. Think about it, he had gone to prison with his mother’s death, and when he came back his family held him responsible for his mother’s death. He was severely depressed. I know that during that time he once went to Allameh University to follow up with his educational affairs, but he was told that he was no longer able to continue his education. So far as I know, his interrogator had called him once and, swearing at him, had accused him of planning to disrupt Allameh University ahead of the Council of Experts elections, and of planning to boycott the elections. He was arrested two days later on the street corner near his grandfather’s home.”
“Since then, nobody has seen him inside the General Ward nor in any of the public rooms of Ward 209. This means that he has been kept inside a solitary cell since his arrest and nobody knows about his health or whether he is alive. In all the past 1.5 years, he has only had two visits with his grandfather. Nobody has any information about him,” Aref added.

The U.S.
Senate passed on Tuesday “a plan to strengthen” security on the border with
Mexico proposed by Republicans John Hoeven and Bob Corker.

The plan
contemplates doubling to 40,000 the number of border agents, building walls and
barriers along 1,126 kilometers (700 miles) of border, and surveillance by
drones and other high-tech tools.

At the height of the immigration reform
debate by U.S. senators, Meade recalled that the priority for Mexico is “to
achieve a more modern, stable and humane migration system” that would benefit
the millions of Mexicans living north of the border, many of whom are
undocumented.

He said it is “indispensable to promote the modernization
of border crossing points” and at the same time “improve their infrastructure
and administration” in an area of voluminous bilateral trade and where “more
than a million people cross every day.”

He also recalled that during U.S.
President Barack Obama’s visit in early May, both governments agreed to work to
make their shared border “a prosperous, secure, sustainable region and a
promoter of development.” EFE